[ExI] Stone age intuition was medical power of attorney

[Keith Henson]

On Sun, Dec 7, 2014 at 4:00 AM,  Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

snip

> As transhumanists we do not think evolution is the last word, so we should be deeply suspicious of any arguments that are too strongly based on evolved intuitions. They may just have made sense on a stone age savannah.?

They better have made sense in the stone age, otherwise they would not
be evolved intuitions.

But you really need the right model to think about evolved traits.
The "goal" of genes is more copies in subsequent generations.
Sometimes that means the death of those who hold the genes when their
death improves the prospects for copies of the genes in others.  This
provides considerable insight into otherwise hard to understand human
behaviors from capture-bonding to fighting in wars.  The same analysis
provides an explanation for the different moral intuitions we have
about killing people while fighting wars and at other times.

I would bet long odds that behaviors and our intuitions that go with
the behaviors all favored the genes that resulted in the behaviors and
intuitions.  I think it is worth the effort to examine moral intuition
in this light.  I would be surprised to find moral instinct in
conflict with the "goal" of genes within the environment of a stone
age savannah.

Keith